Social media platform Reddit has taken legal action against AI startup Anthropic, alleging unauthorized data scraping to train its Claude chatbot. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, claims that Anthropic accessed Reddit’s platform over 100,000 times after July 2024, despite announcing that it had stopped such activity.
Reddit accuses Anthropic of violating its user agreement by scraping content without consent and using the platform’s data to train its large language models. The complaint describes Anthropic as a company that portrays a responsible image publicly while allegedly operating in violation of rules and boundaries.
Reddit’s chief legal officer, Ben Lee, emphasized the unique value of Reddit’s authentic conversations spanning nearly two decades, which reportedly hold a multibillion-dollar worth in the AI training race. Reddit has previously licensed its data to AI companies, including Google, OpenAI, Sprinklr, and Cision, for data access agreements.
The lawsuit seeks damages, restitution, and a permanent injunction against Anthropic from using Reddit-derived data in any of its products. It also aims to prevent the company from licensing or profiting from AI models trained on Reddit content.
Legal disputes over AI training data have been on the rise in the media industry, with high-profile cases involving The New York Times suing OpenAI and Microsoft for unauthorized use of its reporting. More recently, Vox Media and Condé Nast joined a lawsuit against AI firm Cohere for copyright infringement.
These legal tensions highlight the need for stronger user rights in the digital economy, as centralized platforms are criticized for extracting value from user-generated content without adequate compensation. Decentralized social networks like Lens Protocol and Farcaster offer blockchain-based models where users own their data and earn from its use.
Platforms such as Bittensor and Ocean Protocol are developing decentralized infrastructures where users can contribute data or AI models in exchange for on-chain rewards. These initiatives aim to empower users and ensure fair compensation for their contributions in the digital landscape.